~Lima, Ohio, United States, Earth, Ceti Universe~
"Are there any mortician places working right now? I know the news said hospitals were having mortuary vans hold on to the bodies of many deceased folks because everywhere was backed up," Raven spoke softly to the brothers.
The elder sighed, "she still owns a bit of land around this end of town. Her will has her bein buried south of here on one of the bigger pieces. Our family's usual people had to close down though. Owner and his son both died a couple months ago."
Raven just nodded. A lot of people had been passing away to the current viruses. Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) jumping species was even worse than the current coronavirus family. It jumped from deer and elk to other mammals and went absolutely berserk. CWD mutated so fast after that that the CDC, WHO, Fish and Wildlife were all scrambling just to try and find the latest and newest species of virus. When it hit humans, things got immeasurably worse. Something never before seen had happened.
The current coronavirus and CWD had seemed to multiply in hosts that were dual infected and merge in the resulting infection. A hunter in rural Montana first. Then a boar ranch worker in Texas. Soon after, a third and fourth case on opposite ends of the country. Reports started coming in as less developed countries around the world sought aid in identifying and combatting the threat.
Raven began again, "if ya'll need any help, lemme know. I didn't know her well, but we got along a'right."
For the first time since meeting, the older brother looked kindly upon him, "we appreciate it. I don't know what we're going to do. We need to move her back to bed for now. Come on bub."
They carefully worked their arms under the still figure of their mother. As they lifted the small woman from the ground, Raven turned around. He slowly walked back onto his property. He lit a little cigar and took the first long drag on it. Life was so random sometimes. A young woman could cross the street and have a speeding vehicle end her life far too early. An old man could hit that one-hundred-year milestone and keep going for another decade and a half. A cancer patient expected to die a week from finding out their diagnosis could win or lose their battle on a flip of life's dime no matter how hard they fought or not.
He watched as the elder son returned to the spot his mother had fallen to. The man crouched and gently laid his hand on the ground. He stood there for some time until Raven decided to go back down to the basement. He saw Ky curled into Lyn's lap, an irritated look on her face.
"She is overreacting. Said she watched the neighbors son kill her," Lyn grumbled, "I just got her to stop wailing."
"She is dead. She attacked the older one and he pushed her and she hit her head. She went crazy. I honestly don't even remember how things happened precisely. It all happened so fast."
Lyn's face changed slightly, "so she did see her die. I... I thought she was making it up. You should have brought her back downstairs instead of letting her watch that."
"I didn't even fuckin know she was up there. I was tryin to help him stop his arm from pourin out blood."
"Well you should have been paying attention," she emitted a disgusted sigh, "I don't know why I expected help."
"You were all asleep! How was I supposed to know, while I was dealin with an ACTUAL emergency happening in front of me, that she had randomly fuckin woke up and come upstairs?"
Lyn sighed and slid Ky off of her lap onto the cot. She got up and went to one of the metal food shelves. Looking through them, she grabbed a couple cans and went back to the cot. She tossed one on to the cot Raven Junior was still asleep on. He woke up crying as it made contact with his head.
"It was an accident. I didn't mean to hit him with it."
Raven shook his head in irritation and proceeded to pick Junior up. He turned and sat back on the cot. Holding his son with one arm, he picked up the can. Lyn ordered the kids to split it as he peeled the top of. He handed the can to Ky and she scuttled off to grab a plastic spoon. She also grabbed a second can of SpaghettiOs. One would not be enough for both of the growing children. Raven knew it, Ky knew it, Junior knew it, and so did Lyn. She didn't particularly care. Her maternal instincts and abilities never failed to impress her husband or children. He opened the second can and slid it into Junior's waiting hands. This wasn't necessarily a meal that they needed to spend their cooking resources to warm up. Thanks to their mother, they were used to eating this cold.
He stood up, now that his lap was again free, and went to the generator. Flipping a couple switches, he held down the ignition button. A cough and sputter later, she purred right to life. He checked the engine over as it warmed up for a moment. Everything sounded right. Or at least as they had when he first bought the generator. A second one, still boxed, sat close by. Redundancy would be key to survival if the nuclear apocalypse had really begun. The radio was nothing but reports from around the world of cities wiped off of the map and people all over dying by the millions.
Raven let the generator run for a few minutes longer and flipped it off. It quickly went silent and he went to check on their birds. The small pool in the duck cage was still at a good level. The chickens and turkeys were wandering around happily. Their quiet clucks helped to fill in the silence. A couple of the ducks were leaning against the fence between the cages, watching the other birds aggressively. He thought again how fortunate they had been to have built two cages. The ducks would have ravaged the other birds had they been kept together.
He looked somewhat aimlessly around the basement. Everything was still organized, everything was reasonably well stocked for months if necessary, and there was little else needing to be done down here. He went to climb the stairs up into the house. He unlatched and unbolted the locks. There were shelves dedicated to books that sat half empty. He could move some of the more important ones that didn't have twins already down there down along with the books they might actually read in the meantime.
Lynette sat silently eating another can of food while he moved things down. She also browsed social media on her cell phone. She made various noises as she scrolled. The occasional ding and ping emitted from the sleek device.
She was standing at the foot of the stairs as Raven was finishing up another trip. Only a couple more letters to go of the books. It helped that everything from books, to food, to other supplies were already kept organized by Raven's obsessive-compulsive mind. She grabbed his arm.
"Sascha wants to come over here with us. She doesn't feel safe at her apartment, alone, with everything going on."
Raven sighed. He was expecting this and already figured it into his plans for when it finally happened. He nodded and proceeded to grab the keys to his car off of the shelf where they rested.
"Let er know to have her stuff ready and wait downstairs in her lobby. I'll be over as soon as I can."
Without hesitating, Lyn turned back to the cots and dialed her twin up. Raven returned to the first floor and went outside. He slid into the driver's seat and smiled as the Grand Prix stirred to life. He rubbed the dash and looked at the hood. He had spray-painted the car black in the night nearly ten years ago after a party. He loved the Mad Max look it had given the sports car. It's large V6 engine rumbled quietly. The car moved forward, driving over the grass of their side yard. As it moved through side street and then on to the street running in front of their house, he looked around. Were it not for smoke billowing to the south, everything on this end of town would look perfectly normal. Hell, the smoke itself wouldn't even be too odd if its source was not so massive. He turned north on to Metcalf and began his trip to retrieve his sister-in-law.
The further he proceeded into the trip, things began to change, however. He noticed the occasional window broken and door smashed in. They didn't exactly live in the ghetto, but it was the southside after all.